Swinburne University, Melbourne, is a world top 400 university with around 20% of its cohort from overseas. We asked head of its South East Asia regional team, Sofian Edy, about recruiting in the region and the impact of Australia’s enrolment downturn.
The PIE: Where do most of Swinburne’s international students come from?
SE: China is number one followed by Vietnam. India used to be second but the national downturn in enrolments has driven this down to third. I look after South East Asia, mainly the markets Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia — four of which are in our top ten. In total Swinburne has around 7,500 overseas students, 30,000 Australian.
The PIE: How do you attract South East Asian students?
SE: My role has changed. Previously I just looked after recruitment and admissions – going out and finding students to bring here. Bums on seats, that’s all we had in mind for a long while.
But over the last two years we expanded our scope to include talking to government departments and potential university partners about articulation agreements, setting up in-country programmes and joint degrees. This now takes up most of my time. We have just finished an articulation agreement with three universities in Indonesia, actually.
“Agents are our ears and eyes in the market, and can actually provide us with very useful information”
The PIE: Do these agreements play a big role in bringing students to Melbourne?
SE: It’s starting to show some results. It’s not significant numbers at this stage, but we are hoping that in the future there will be a good steady flow of students coming through the agreed programmes.
The PIE: You have a lot of experience recruiting in South East Asia. What are the main things Australian institutions should consider when trying to penetrate the market?
SE: We have a lot of people we work with on this including federal government departments like AEI and Austrade, and the Victorian government, which also has officials in South East Asia. They give us updates on the market and are a very good source of information about which local schools are doing something new, and whether they have the contacts or not.
But of course apart from that, we have a very good selection of agents who work for us in those countries. They are our ears and eyes in the market, and can actually provide us with very useful information before we go in to recruit.
The PIE: Any tips for connecting with agents in this region?
SE: We work with them to organise special events like pre-departure sessions and provide them with marketing funds. They love doing exhibitions. But we have to select our partners very carefully in terms of who we support, otherwise we’ll be there 365 days a year doing exhibitions. With the current climate in Australian international education, all universities are finding their resources to do this kind of marketing constrained.
“We are not expanding for sure and there have been declines in some markets”
The PIE: You mean the international enrolments downturn caused by the high Australian dollar and other factors. Has it had a big impact on Swinburne?
SE: Yes. We are not expanding for sure and there have been declines in some markets. There are certainly not high volumes coming to Australia and the university is looking at doing things very differently now. Not necessarily by cutting things left right and centre, but we can’t just rely on going to exhibitions like we did over the past 10 years. Now, selecting solid partners to work with for future years is very important.
The PIE: Have you had to come up with new lower-cost approaches to marketing? Using more social media for example.
SE: We have increased our activities in social media and we regularly provide our marketing department with feedback on how social media is used locally. I don’t think anybody has the right formula to target South East Asian students with social media as yet. Personally, I believe they are not really using Facebook on computers, most are using it on Blackberrys. And with that you tend not to be able to reach them with your advertisements.
The PIE: Have you found a way round that? How about local search engines? [More>>]
SE: Unlike China, a lot of South East Asia uses Google. So we use Google to optimise our reach, but young people are increasingly using Twitter and Facebook, so we are looking at ways to reach them through these two.
But instead of just spending money on advertisements we are also very actively posting our activities, trying to get students to like our pages, and generally engaging with them through these platforms.
The PIE: Who’s your competition in the region? Just Australian and Western universities or local universities too?
SE: Besides the factors we can’t control, such as immigration policy and the high dollar, there are other regions actively recruiting in South East Asia. China has become a very popular destination lately, mainly driven by the desire to learn the language and make business links.
“Instead of just spending money on advertisements we are also very actively posting on Facebook and Twitter”
Of late we have also seen increased activities from America. Malaysia and Singapore also pose a threat as education hubs with many prestigious institutions going into those countries. There are a lot of international programmes in Vietnam too, and Indonesia is growing as well.
The PIE: Regarding the downturn, do you see any change on the horizon for Australian providers? Will the new immigration reforms make a difference?
SE: I have seen that the reforms do attract a lot of interest from students in South East Asia because it brings a whole load of new opportunities for them. They are excited about the more generous post-study work rights.
Certainly it will be challenging, given the tough economic situation in the Australian job market, not to mention that they will have to compete with existing workers looking to find new jobs. But I think the two-year period to find employment is very sensible. I think some employers will not take it too seriously but most will.
“What lies ahead will be very interesting. The reforms are definitely offering a more positive outlook”
So what lies ahead will be very interesting. The reforms are definitely offering a more positive outlook for institutions in terms of recruitment. We really promote this news with our agents and students. But it’s certainly not the only way we are going to promote Australia. I also hope the Australian dollar will come down from its current high value; if it remains this strong for a while then we will have a tough time. It could take a year or two, then again who knows.
